Poker Cold Decks

Dear Mark,
In a recent column you mentioned cold decks and cheating. What does a cold deck have anything to do with cheating? Doesn't a cold deck mean cards that are cold in respect to player having an unlucky night? Dwight E.

In your scenario, yes, Dwight, a "cold deck" could mean a forensically fair game, but a tough luck time at the tables. When I stated that cheating at cards can be done a whole host of ways, one being the use of physical objects such as cold decks, I meant decks that are pre-stacked, and are introduced either at the deal, after the real deck has been shuffled, or before the deal by a card mechanic using sleight of hand.

Secretly slipping a stacked deck into the game can provide a great potential payoff for the card cheat. The card charlatan's goal is to introduce a new deck, stacked so as to give him or her a great hand, but it may also give all the other players great hands, too -- great enough to entice them (those lovely sheep} to bet a decent chunk of change, but not quite great enough to beat the sharper or arouse suspicion of his jiggery-pokery.

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